Live Streaming: It’s one of the newest forms of entertainment in our constantly evolving world. Content creators go on sites like Twitch and Youtube to share their experiences playing games, commentating on certain issues, or just living their everyday lives, while thousands upon thousands of people tune in to watch them. However, it definitely has its issues, and many internet users know how to exploit them.

One of the best aspects of livestreaming is that it provides a platform for many people to show off their interests and hobbies. It typically creates a nice, thriving community revolving around these “streamers”, as they attract people who share the same interest. However, not everyone has good intentions when it comes to live streaming. Events that have transpired on live streams range from swattings, which are attacks on streamers where people call Emergency Services and claim that the streamer is doing something serious enough for the SWAT to go in, to flat out shootings.

Another factor in livestreams is the interactions of those who watch them. The chat is usually the place where viewers hang out and communicate with the streamer, and some nice and sometimes entertaining interactions come out of it. Some streamers even have a message system intertwined with their donation system, so donators can send messages that will be played on the stream through a text to speech program. However, many streamers don’t enact any filters on this feature, which allows for a lot of inappropriate and awkward situations to take place, especially when the streamer is out in public.

Overall, things aren’t very black and white when it comes to live streaming. Plenty of entertainment can be gained out of watching other people stream, but many bad things can happen, be it a streamer having bad intentions in the first place or a viewer sabotaging the stream. However, I lean more towards the idea that livestreaming does more good than harm. These incidents aren’t exactly commonplace, and many of the problems live streaming has can be solved easily, if streamers were to enact filters that prevented donators and chatters from using racist, sexist, and other types of inappropriate language. That way, streamers won’t get into hot water because of someone on the internet. Livestreaming is already great, and can only improve from here.